Kallis closes out final day
22 Jun 2010
Jacques Kallis anchored a meandering final day with 62* as South Africa reached 235-3; the second Test ending in a predictable draw.
With next to no deterioration on the Warner Park driveway, South Africa’s batting out the day was a formality – the side losing just three wickets till the final hour after tea, when the captains expectedly decided to call it off.
Earlier, Graeme Smith looked solid before falling for 46 to Shane Shillingford, cutting one time too many tto a delivery turning away. Conversely Alviro Petersen was watchful – he had a slip, silly point and silly mid-off but negated their influence with steady, mature play.
Hashim Amla, however, was circumspect against the turn and bounce. Given a life on 21 by Dwayne Bravo (who dropped him at slip) Amla illustrated his worth – 5 impressive boundaries around the wicket against the slower bowlers tempering his previous edginess. But Shillingford again derailed him in the forties (41 to the first innings’ 44). Dwayne Bravo then ended both the innings and Petersen’s contribution; his yorker castling the opener for 39.
Kallis and AB de Villiers (31*) ensured the draw with their unbeaten 104-run stand, the match crawling to a close as the pair worked on their averages. Kallis was solid as ever against the seamers, and with Shillingford adopting a defensive line, was asked few questions by the spinners. He reached his fifty-third half-century just before the tea break.
South Africa declared an hour in to the tea break to bring about the Test’s premature but warranted end. The Proteas still hold a 1-0 series lead with one Test to play, but the match signals the end of a nine match Caribbean winning streak for the tourists.
South Africa (first innings) 543-6 declared
AB de Villiers 135*, Graeme Smith 132, Shane Shillingford 3-193
West Indies (first innings) 546 all out
Shivnarine Chanderpaul 166, Brendan Nash 114, Morne Morkel 4-116
South Africa (second innings) 235-3 declared
Jacques Kallis 62*, Graeme Smith 46, Shane Shillingford 2-80
Match drawn
3 Comments
22 Jun 2010, 15:46 pm
Why do they even bother?
Take the day off. Sip some cocktails.
23 Jun 2010, 02:10 am
With Test cricket under increasing competition from the action and results oriented ODI and T20 variety, surely the time has come for the ICC to step in and come down hard on member countries who prepare runways as wickets?
After all, Test cricket is the jewel in the ICC’s crown (and rightly so, being the only true form of the game and examination of a cricketer’s abilities) and needs to be nurtured and protected.
When tracks offering something for everyone as prepared, Test cricket is a wonderfully exciting spectacle; when **** like the track at Warner Park are dished up, Test cricket is more dull than a platteland orkes fes!
And it drives away those newfound fans who’ve had a nibble of T20 and are prepared to sample the ‘main course’. Rightly so, too, as no-one, not even the staunchest traditionalists can, with any conviction, argue that this is something we should all be watching.
Of course, the West Indies Board produced this rubbish track because it is too scared to lose, would rather play out a drab draw than take a chance that it just might win (and being 1-0 down in a three-Test series, you’d think winning the series would be more important than avoiding a whitewash…but no, such is the terrible state of WI cricket that anything but defeat will do…).
Compound this rubbish with Chanderplaul getting MoM ahead of AB de Villiers.
Enough, enough now…
27 Jun 2010, 12:31 pm
so .. Osama Bin Ladin falls cheaply again …
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